Cleveland's downtown stops short of the Lake Erie and Cuyahoga River waterfront. But that could change, given both the recent vote to move the city's port and developer Robert Stark's plans for a redeveloped Warehouse District.

Cleveland, a city with miles of ugly, neglected and underused waterfront on a river and a Great Lake, has done precious little in recent decades to capitalize on its watery blessings.

One reason is a lack of leaders with the guts and vision to make big plans and stick around long enough to make them stick. But maybe, just maybe, the city's relationship to the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie is about to change dramatically for the better.

Adam Wasserman, one year into his new job as president and chief executive officer of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, has just pulled off one of the biggest city-planning coups in decades.

With a speed amazing for a city that took three decades to conceive, fund and build a bus rapid-transit corridor on Euclid Avenue, Wasserman persuaded the powers that be in Cleveland to move the city's port from the downtown waterfront to a sleepy industrial zone at East 55th Street on the city's East Side.

The Cleveland City Planning Commission and the Cuyahoga County commissioners both approved the port move several weeks ago, paving the way for official approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

If all goes well, Wasserman thinks construction could begin in 2011 on a new 200-acre landfill at East 55th Street. Within several decades, the new land could accommodate all current and future shipping activities, including a possible container port.

Make no mistake. This is the kind of big, farsighted planning initiative that could dramatically change the city's future for the better.

The consequences could be as significant as all the major city-planning efforts of the past few decades put together, including the restoration of theaters at Playhouse Square, the construction of the Gateway sports complex and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Here's why: Moving the port to East 55th Street could enable the creation of a vast international trade district on the city's East Side with excellent highway and rail access.

The port's initial estimate is that the new facility could spur $2 billion in investment and create 50,000 jobs. Among other things, the city could leverage the enhanced port and the weak U.S. dollar to recruit manufacturing operations from overseas.

Wasserman has already begun collaborating with George Delgado, the Cleveland Foundation's director of international relations, on how to make such recruitment a reality.

Wasserman agreed to report back to the City Planning Commission soon on how the port could lay plans for the district. Such a zone should stretch as far south as the fallow acres of Cleveland's Midtown, which lie astride the aforementioned Euclid Corridor bus rapid-transit line, and even as far south as I-490.

Moving the port off the downtown waterfront would also open the way for offices, housing, parks and retail to grow down to the water's edge.

The lakefront plan completed earlier this decade during the administration of former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell contemplates just such an evolution. So does developer Robert Stark, who has championed the idea of bringing downtown down to the lake. 

Port's move turns the tide

But such ideas had no real way to become a reality until Wasserman proposed moving the port east. And Wasserman, a 45-year-old executive who moved to Cleveland after two years directing Citybuild, a redevelopment agency in the British port city of Hull, now wants to play a big role in shaping that future.

"I want to speak about how we can create the most magnificent signature for a waterfront city that creates great values," he said last week in an interview.

If the possibilities are enormous, there's risk, too.

The biggest immediate hazard is that corporations eager for a prestige address on the city's lakefront could pressure the city and the port quickly to turn the city's 130 acres of downtown dock space into a private, gated corporate enclave.

An Oklahoma-style land rush on the lakefront could bleed the core business district of vital energy and leave downtown with a collection of empty postwar office towers along Superior Avenue, East Ninth Street and other major thoroughfares.

A precedent for such a scenario has been set by the Eaton Corp.'s proposed move from its current building at Superior Avenue and East 12th Street to the Waterfront Line loop of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. The loop lies on port land just north of the city's waterfront rail lines.

It's easy to view the Eaton proposal as the first step toward a rapid development of other single-purpose corporate "campuses" pressing even closer to the water's edge. But Wasserman, who supports the Eaton move, said he doesn't want that to happen.

"We're not sure the community will want to wait until we're ready to move into our new port," he said, "but we'd like to have an agreed-upon choreography."

A new process for planning

To establish that "choreography," Wasserman wants to launch a new planning process for the city's downtown lakefront in collaboration with the city, as soon as this summer. That effort will come on top of what the port already intends to do regarding an international trade district.

Both projects mean that Wasserman soon will become a client of urban designers and city-planning consultants. A lot depends on which firms he hires, and whether he can devise a process that creates great results. When pressed for specifics, Wasserman has few details at the moment. But it's encouraging that he wants to aim as high as possible.

"We'd like to bring in some talent to stir people's imagination," he said, "folks that have worked on waterfronts in Sydney [Australia] and Barcelona [Spain]. What are the greatest cities that have had an opportunity like ours? Why don't we bring those folks in?"

Stark, for one, likes what he hears from Wasserman.

"Thank God we have a newcomer in Adam who's not tainted by the pessimism of the past," Stark said.

Wasserman's challenge is to capitalize on such enthusiasm and to establish new levels of excellence in planning the details of the port's big moves. If he recruits the right talent, sets the right benchmarks and taps the community's energy, he could make a huge difference.

Cleveland needs a new wave of world-class planners and urban designers who can crystallize the city's latent waterfront energies and help shape the future. Wasserman could be just the guy to recruit that talent -- if he sticks around long enough to follow through.

So far, he gives every indication of understanding the importance of top-quality design. That, plus his performance so far, give reason to believe the port's next steps could be very, very exciting.

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